Bill Decker: The world at your fingertips -- and it's weird

We've become familiar with the big ways the Internet changes the world - Twitter and the Arab Spring, Mitt Romney and YouTube, and stuff like that.

But cyberspace has changed the world in smaller but possibly more powerful ways, too. One is the ability of Americans, a notoriously insular people, to whip out a smartphone or plop down at a Starbucks with a tablet computer to ask someone in Australia, "How's it going, mate?" Or to talk to almost anyone else in the world who is similarly equipped.

How can that not change the world?

I confine myself to the relatively ancient technologies of IMs and chat rooms, sometimes on a specific topic like news, or sometimes in rooms that are no more than places to jabber. Others converse with Skype, which is a little too much like "The Jetsons" for my taste, or virtual reality games such as Second Life.

I've checked out Second Life. But they've got their own economy and currency and everything. It's no fun being broke in two universes.

Even so, thanks to the Internet and the fact that a lot of foreigners know English, it's possible to discover things about the world:

» Al-Qaida aside, a lot of foreigners still love Americans. This seems especially true of people from Norway, the only European Union member with a per capita GDP greater than ours. Half the country seems to have learned English from "CSI" and Bruce Willis movies.

» Sometimes we are very close together. During Hurricane Isaac, friends in Europe logged on to check on me.

» Sometimes we are very far apart, even those of us in long-established nations in which ethnic groups have been thrown together. Call a London friend British, and he's likely as not to correct you. He's English.

Although outright rudeness is rare, someone might be impolite about, say, Australia's origins as a penal colony. One friend in England said she visited Australia and filled out an immigration form.

"Have you ever been convicted of a crime?" the form asked.

"I had no idea," she responded, "that it was still required."

Reach Bill Decker at (337) 289-6327 or bdecker@theadvertiser.com

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Bill Decker: The world at your fingertips -- and it's weird

We've become familiar with the big ways the Internet changes the world - Twitter and the Arab Spring, Mitt Romney and YouTube, and stuff like that.But cyberspace has changed the world in smaller but

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